from their dim houses. Doors were openedand gates unbarred. Gladness wakened.To the hill they thronged, and their heads liftingon the guest they gazed. Greybearded menbowed before him and blessed his comingtheir years to heal; youths and maidens,wives and children welcome gave him.His song was ended. Silent standinghe looked upon them. Lord they called him;king they made him, crowned with goldenwheaten garland, white his raiment,his harp his sceptre. In his house was fire,food and wisdom; there fear came not.To manhood he grew, might and wisdom.

When the moon was new and the sun young There were elves olden and strong spellsof silver and gold the gods sung: Under green hills in hollow dellsin the green grass they silver spilled, They sang o’er the gold they wrought with mirth,and the white waters they with gold filled. In the deeps of time in the young earth,Ere the pit was dug or Hell yawned, Ere Hell was digged, ere the dragons’ broodere dwarf was bred or dragon spawned, Or the dwarves were spawned in dungeons rude;there were Elves of old, and strong spells And men there were in a few landsunder green hills in hollow dells That caught some cunning of their mouths and hands.they sang as they wrought many fair things, Yet their doom came and their songs failed.and the bright crowns of the Elf-kings. And greed that made them not to its holes haledBut their doom fell, and their song waned, Their gems and gold and their loveliness,by iron hewn and by steel chained. And the shadows fell on Elfinesse.Greed that sang not, nor with mouth smiled,in dark holes their wealth piled,graven silver and carven gold:over Elvenhome the shadow rolled.

There was an old dwarf in a dark cave,to silver and gold his fingers clave;with hammer and tongs and anvil-stonehe worked his hands to the hard bone,and coins he made, and strings of rings,and thought to buy the power of kings.But his eyes grew dim and his ears dulland the skin yellow on his old skull;through his bony claw with a pale sheenthe stony jewels slipped unseen.No feet he heard, though the earth quaked,when the young dragon his thirst slaked,and the stream smoked at his dark door.The flames hissed on the dank floor,

and he died alone in the red fire;his bones were ashes in the hot mire.

There was an old dragon under grey stone;

his red eyes blinked as he lay alone.

His joy was dead and his youth spent,

he was knobbed and wrinkled, and his limbs bent

in the long years to his gold chained;

in his heart’s furnace the fire waned.

To his belly’s slime gems stuck thick,

silver and gold he would snuff and lick:

he knew the place of the least ring

beneath the shadow of his black wing.

Of thieves he thought on his hard bed,

and dreamed that on their flesh he fed,

their bones crushed, and their blood drank:

his ears drooped and his breath sank.

Mail-rings rang. He heard them not.

A voice echoed in his deep grot:

a young warrior with a bright sword

called him forth to defend his hoard.

His teeth were knives, and of horn his hide,

but iron tore him, and his flame died.

There was an old king on a high throne:

his white beard lay on knees of bone;

his mouth savoured neither meat nor drink,

nor his ears song; he could only think

of his huge chest with carven lid

where pale gems and gold lay hid

in secret treasury in the dark ground;

its strong doors were iron-bound.

The swords of his thanes were dull with rust,

his glory fallen, his rule unjust,

his halls hollow, and his bowers cold,

but king he was of elvish gold.

He heard not the horns in the mountain-pass,

he smelt not the blood on the trodden grass,

but his halls were burned, his kingdom lost;

in a cold pit his bones were tossed.

There is an old hoard in a dark rock, There is an old hoard in a dark rockforgotten behind doors none can unlock; Forgotten behind doors none can unlock.that grim gate no man can pass. The keys are lost and the path gone.On the mound grows the green grass; The mound unheeded that the grass grows on:there sheep feed and the larks soar, The sheep crop it and the larks riseand the wind blows from the sea-shore. From its green mantle, and no man’s eyesThe old hoard the Night shall keep, Shall find its secret, till those returnwhile earth waits and the Elves sleep. Who wrought the treasure, till again burn

In after-days, when to the shoreof Middle-earth from Valinorthe Elven-hosts in might returned,and banners flew and beacons burned,when kings of Eldamar went byin strength of war, beneath the skythen still his silver trumpets blewwhen sun was young and moon was new.Afar then in Beleriand,in Doriath’s beleaguered land,King Thingol sat on guarded thronein many-pillared halls of stone:there beryl, pearl, and opal pale,and metal wrought like fishes’ mail,buckler and corslet, axe and sword,and gleaming spears were laid in hoard:all these he had and counted small,for dearer than all wealth in hall,and fairer than are born to Men,a daughter had he, Lúthien.

OF LÚTHIEN THE BELOVED

Such lissom limbs no more shall run

on the green earth beneath the sun;

so fair a maid no more shall be

from dawn to dusk, from sun to sea.

Her robe was blue as summer skies,

but grey as evening were her eyes;

her mantle sewn with lilies fair,

but dark as shadow was her hair.

Her feet were swift as bird on wing,

her laughter merry as the spring;

the slender willow, the bowing reed,

the fragrance of a flowering mead,

the light upon the leaves of trees,

the voice of water, more then these

her beauty was and blissfulness,

her glory and her loveliness.

She dwelt in the enchanted landwhile elven-might yet held in handthe woven woods of Doriath:none ever thither found the pathunbidden, none the forest-eavesdared pass, or stir the listening leaves.To North there lay a land of dread,Dungorthin where all ways were deadin hills of shadow bleak and cold;beyond was Deadly Nightshade’s holdin Taur-nu-Fuin’s fastness grim,where sun was sick and moon was dim.To South the wide earth unexplored;to West the ancient Ocean roared,unsailed and shoreless, wide and wild;to East in peaks of blue were piled,in silence folded, mist-enfurled,the mountains of the outer world.

Thus Thingol in his dolven hallamid the Thousand Caverns tallof Menegroth as king abode:to him there led no mortal road.Beside him sat his deathless queen,fair Melian, and wove unseennets of enchantment round his throne,and spells were laid on tree and stone:sharp was his sword and high his helm,

the king of beech and oak and elm.

When grass was green and leaves were long,

when finch and mavis sang their song,

there under bough and under sun

in shadow and in light would run

fair Lúthien the elven-maid,

dancing in dell and grassy glade.

OF DAIRON MINSTREL OF THINGOL

When sky was clear and stars were keen,

then Dairon with his fingers lean,

as daylight melted into eve,

a trembling music sweet would weave

on flutes of silver, thin and clear

for Lúthien, the maiden dear.

There mirth there was and voices bright;there eve was peace and morn was light;there jewel gleamed and silver wanand red gold on white fingers shone,and elanor and niphredil

bloomed in the grass unfading still,while the endless years of Elven-landrolled over far Beleriand,until a day of doom befell,as still the elven-harpers tell.

Far in the Northern hills of stonein caverns black there was a throneby flame encircled; there the smokein coiling columns rose to chokethe breath of life, and there in deepand gasping dungeons lost would creepto hopeless death all those who strayedby doom beneath that ghastly shade. A king there sat, most dark and fell

of all that under heaven dwell.

Than earth or sea, than moon or starmore ancient was he, mightier farin mind abysmal than the thoughtof Eldar or of Men, and wroughtof strength primeval; ere the stonewas hewn to build the world, alonehe walked in darkness, fierce and dire,burned, as he wielded it, by fire. He ’twas that laid in ruin blackthe Blessed Realm and fled then backto Middle-earth anew to buildbeneath the mountains mansions filledwith misbegotten slaves of hate:death’s shadow brooded at his gate.His hosts he armed with spears of steeland brands of flame, and at their heelthe wolf walked and the serpent creptwith lidless eyes. Now forth they leapt,his ruinous legions, kindling warin field and frith and woodland hoar.Where long the golden elanorhad gleamed amid the grass they boretheir banners black, where finch had sungand harpers silver harps had wrungnow dark the ravens wheeled and criedamid the reek, and far and widethe swords of Morgoth dripped with redabove the hewn and trampled dead.Slowly his shadow like a cloudrolled from the North, and on the proudthat would not yield his vengeance fell;to death or thraldom under hellall things he doomed: the Northern landlay cowed beneath his ghastly hand.

But still there lived in hiding coldBeor’s son, Barahir the bold,of land bereaved and lordship shornwho once a prince of Men was born,and now an outlaw lurked and layin the hard heath and woodland grey.

OF THE SAVING OF KING INGLOR FELAGUND

BY THE XII BEORINGS

Twelve men beside him still there went,

still faithful when all hope was spent.

Their names are yet in elven-song

remembered, though the years are long

since doughty Dagnir and Ragnor,

Radhruin, Dairuin and Gildor,

Gorlim Unhappy, and Urthel,

and Arthad and Hathaldir fell;

since the black shaft with venomed wound

took Belegund and Baragund,

the mighty sons of Bregolas;

since he whose doom and deeds surpass

all tales of Men was laid on bier,

fair Beren son of Barahir.

For these it was, the chosen men

of Bëor’s house, who in the fen

of reedy Serech stood at bay

about King Inglor in the day

of his defeat, and with their swords

thus saved of all the Elven-lords

the fairest; and his love they earned.

And he escaping south, returned

to Nargothrond his mighty realm,

where still he wore his crownéd helm;

but they to their northern homeland rode,

dauntless and few, and there abode

unconquered still, defying fate,

pursued by Morgoth’s sleepless hate.

OF TARN AELUIN THE BLESSED

Such deeds of daring there they wroughtthat soon the hunters that them soughtat rumour of their coming fled.Though price was set upon each headto match the weregild of a king,no soldier could to Morgoth bringnews even of their hidden lair;

for where the highland brown and bareabove the darkling pines aroseof steep Dorthonion to the snows

In vain, or worse – for many spieshad Morgoth, many lurking eyeswell used to pierce the deepest dark;and Gorlim’s coming they would markand would report. There came a daywhen once more Gorlim crept that way,down the deserted weedy laneat dusk of autumn sad with rainand cold wind whining. Lo! a lightat window fluttering in the nightamazed he saw; and drawing near,between faint hope and sudden fear,he looked within. ’Twas Eilinel!Though changed she was, he knew her well.With grief and hunger she was worn,her tresses tangled, raiment torn;her gentle eyes with tears were dim,as soft she wept: ‘Gorlim, Gorlim!Thou canst not have forsaken me.Then slain, alas! thou slain must be!And I must linger cold, alone,and loveless as a barren stone!’

One cry he gave – and then the lightblew out, and in the wind of nightwolves howled; and on his shoulder fellsuddenly the griping hands of hell.There Morgoth’s servants fast him caughtand he was cruelly bound, and broughtto Sauron captain of the host,the lord of werewolf and of ghost,most foul and fell of all who kneltat Morgoth’s throne. In might he dwelton Gaurhoth Isle; but now had riddenwith strength abroad, by Morgoth biddento find the rebel Barahir.He sat in dark encampment near,

and thither his butchers dragged their prey.

There now in anguish Gorlim lay:

with bond on neck, on hand and foot,

to bitter torment he was put,

to break his will and him constrain

to buy with treason end of pain.

But naught to them would he reveal

of Barahir, nor break the seal

of faith that on his tongue was laid;

until at last a pause was made,

and one came softly to his stake,

a darkling form that stooped, and spake

to him of Eilinel his wife.

‘Wouldst thou,’ he said, ‘forsake thy life,who with few words might win releasefor her, and thee, and go in peace,and dwell together far from war,friends of the King? What wouldst thou more?’And Gorlim, now long worn with pain,yearning to see his wife again(whom well he weened was also caughtin Sauron’s net), allowed the thoughtto grow, and faltered in his troth.Then straight, half willing and half loath,they brought him to the seat of stonewhere Sauron sat. He stood alonebefore that dark and dreadful face,and Sauron said: ‘Come, mortal base!What do I hear? That thou wouldst dareto barter with me? Well, speak fair!What is thy price?’ And Gorlim lowbowed down his head, and with great woe,word on slow word, at last imploredthat merciless and faithless lordthat he might free depart, and mightagain find Eilinel the White,and dwell with her, and cease from waragainst the King. He craved no more.

Then Sauron smiled, and said: ‘Thou thrall!The price thou askest is but smallfor treachery and shame so great!

I grant it surely! Well, I wait:

Come! Speak now swiftly and speak true!’

Then Gorlim wavered, and he drew

half back; but Sauron’s daunting eye

there held him, and he dared not lie:

as he began, so must he wend

from first false step to faithless end:

he all must answer as he could,

betray his lord and brotherhood,

and cease, and fall upon his face.

Then Sauron laughed aloud. ‘Thou base,thou cringing worm! Stand up,and hear me! And now drink the cupthat I have sweetly blent for thee!Thou fool: a phantom thou didst seethat I, I Sauron, made to snarethy lovesick wits. Naught else was there.Cold ’tis with Sauron’s wraiths to wed!Thy Eilinel! She is long since dead,dead, food of worms less low than thou.And yet thy boon I grant thee now:to Eilinel thou soon shalt go,and lie in her bed, no more to knowof war – or manhood. Have thy pay!’

And Gorlim then they dragged away,and cruelly slew him; and at lastin the dank mould his body cast,where Eilinel long since had lainin the burned woods by butchers slain.

Thus Gorlim died an evil death,and cursed himself with dying breath,and Barahir at last was caughtin Morgoth’s snare; for set at naughtby treason was the ancient gracethat guarded long that lonely place,Tarn Aeluin: now all laid barewere secret paths and hidden lair.

Through moor and fen, by tree and briarhe wandered far: he saw the fireof Sauron’s camp, he heard the howlof hunting Orc and wolf a-prowl,and turning back, for long the way,benighted in the forest lay.In weariness he then must sleep,fain in a badger-hole to creep,and yet he heard (or dreamed it so)nearby a marching legion gowith clink of mail and clash of shieldsup towards the stony mountain-fields.He slipped then into darkness down,until, as man that waters drownstrives upwards gasping, it seemed to himhe rose through slime beside the brimof sullen pool beneath dead trees.Their livid boughs in a cold breezetrembled, and all their black leaves stirred:each leaf a black and croaking bird,

whose neb a gout of blood let fall.

He shuddered, struggling thence to crawl

through winding weeds, when far away

he saw a shadow faint and grey

gliding across the dreary lake.

Slowly it came, and softly spake:

‘Gorlim I was, but now a wraith

of will defeated, broken faith,

traitor betrayed. Go! Stay not here!

Awaken, son of Barahir,

and haste! For Morgoth’s fingers close

upon thy father’s throat; he knows

your trysts, your paths, your secret lair.’

Then he revealed the devil’s snarein which he fell, and failed; and lastbegging forgiveness, wept, and passedout into darkness. Beren woke,leapt up as one by sudden strokewith fire of anger filled. His bowand sword he seized, and like the roehotfoot o’er rock and heath he spedbefore the dawn. Ere day was deadto Aeluin at last he came,as the red sun westward sank in flame;but Aeluin was red with blood,red were the stones and trampled mud.Black in the birches sat a-rowthe raven and the carrion crow;wet were their nebs, and dark the meatthat dripped beneath their griping feet.One croaked: ‘Ha, ha, he comes too late!’‘Ha, ha!’ they answered, ‘ha! too late!’

There Beren laid his father’s bonesin haste beneath a cairn of stones;no graven rune nor word he wroteo’er Barahir, but thrice he smotethe topmost stone, and thrice aloudhe cried his name. ‘Thy death’, he vowed,‘I will avenge. Yea, though my fateshould lead at last to Angband’s gate.’And then he turned, and did not weep:too dark his heart, the wound too deep.

Out into night, as cold as stone,loveless, friendless, he strode alone.

Of hunter’s lore he had no needthe trail to find. With little heedhis ruthless foe, secure and proud,marched north away with blowing loudof brazen horns their lord to greet,trampling the earth with grinding feet.Behind them bold but wary wentnow Beren, swift as hound on scent,until beside a darkling well,where Rivil rises from the fell

down into Serech’s reeds to flow,he found the slayers, found his foe.From hiding on the hillside nearhe marked them all: though less than fear,too many for his sword and bowto slay alone. Then, crawling lowas snake in heath, he nearer crept.There many weary with marching slept,but captains, sprawling on the grass,drank and from hand to hand let passtheir booty, grudging each small thingraped from dead bodies. One a ringheld up, and laughed: ‘Now, mates,’ he cried‘here’s mine! And I’ll not be denied,though few be like it in the land.For I ’twas wrenched it from the handof that same Barahir I slew,the robber-knave. If tales be true,he had it of some elvish lord,for the rogue-service of his sword.No help it gave to him – he’s dead.They’re parlous, elvish rings, ’tis said;still for the gold I’ll keep it, yeaand so eke out my niggard pay.Old Sauron bade me bring it back,and yet, methinks, he has no lackof weightier treasures in his hoard:the greater the greedier the lord!So mark ye, mates, ye all shall swear

the hand of Barahir was bare!’

And as he spoke an arrow sped

from tree behind, and forward dead

choking he fell with barb in throat;

with leering face the earth he smote.

Forth, then as wolfhound grim there leaptBeren among them. Two he sweptaside with sword; caught up the ring;slew one who grasped him; with a springback into shadow passed, and fledbefore their yells of wrath and dreadof ambush in the valley rang.Then after him like wolves they sprang,howling and cursing, gnashing teeth,hewing and bursting through the heath,shooting wild arrows, sheaf on sheaf,at trembling shade or shaken leaf.

In fateful hour was Beren born:he laughed at dart and wailing horn;fleetest of foot of living men,tireless on fell and light on fen,

elf-wise in wood, he passed away,defended by his hauberk greyof dwarvish craft in Nogrod made,where hammers rang in cavern’s shade.

As fearless Beren was renowned:when men most hardy upon groundwere reckoned folk would speak his name,foretelling that his after-famewould even golden Hador passor Barahir and Bregolas;

but sorrow now his heart had wroughtto fierce despair, no more he foughtin hope of life or joy or praise,but seeking so to use his daysonly that Morgoth deep should feelthe sting of his avenging steel,ere death he found and end of pain:his only fear was thraldom’s chain.Danger he sought and death pursued,and thus escaped the doom he wooed,

and deeds of breathless daring wrought

alone, of which the rumour brought

new hope to many a broken man.

They whispered ‘Beren’, and began

in secret swords to whet, and soft

by shrouded hearths at evening oft

songs they would sing of Beren’s bow,

of Dagmor his sword: how he would go

silent to camps and slay the chief,

or trapped in his hiding past belief

would slip away, and under night

by mist or moon, or by the light

of open day would come again.

Of hunters hunted, slayers slain

they sang, of Gorgol the Butcher hewn,

of ambush in Ladros, fire in Drûn,

of thirty in one battle dead,

of wolves that yelped like curs and fled,

yea, Sauron himself with wound in hand.

Thus one alone filled all that land

with fear and death for Morgoth’s folk;

his comrades were the beech and oak

who failed him not, and wary things

with fur and fell and feathered wings

that silent wander, or dwell alone

in hill and wild and waste of stone

watched o’er his ways, his faithful friends.

Yet seldom well an outlaw ends;and Morgoth was a king more strongthan all the world has since in songrecorded: dark athwart the landreached out the shadow of his hand,at each recoil returned again;two more were sent for one foe slain.New hope was cowed, all rebels killed;quenched were the fires, the songs were stilled,tree felled, heath burned, and through the wastemarched the black host of Orcs in haste.

Almost they closed their ring of steelround Beren; hard upon his heelnow trod their spies; within their hedge

of all aid shorn, upon the edge

of death at bay he stood aghast

and knew that he must die at last,

or flee the land of Barahir,

his land beloved. Beside the mere

beneath a heap of nameless stones

must crumble those once mighty bones,

forsaken by both son and kin,

bewailed by reeds of Aeluin.

In winter’s night the houseless Northhe left behind, and stealing forththe leaguer of his watchful foehe passed – a shadow on the snow,a swirl of wind, and he was gone,the ruin of Dorthonion,Tarn Aeluin and its water wan,never again to look upon.No more shall hidden bowstring sing,no more his shaven arrows wing,no more his hunted head shall lieupon the heath beneath the sky.The Northern stars, whose silver fireof old Men named the Burning Briar,were set behind his back, and shoneo’er land forsaken: he was gone.

Southward he turned, and south awayhis long and lonely journey lay,while ever loomed before his paththe dreadful peaks of Gorgorath.Never had foot of man most boldyet trod those mountains steep and cold,nor climbed upon their sudden brink,whence, sickened, eyes must turn and shrinkto see their southward cliffs fall sheerin rocky pinnacle and pierdown into shadows that were laidbefore the sun and moon were made.In valleys woven with deceitand washed with waters bitter-sweetdark magic lurked in gulf and glen;but out away beyond the ken

Thence wayward wandering on a timefrom Lórien she dared to climbthe everlasting mountain-wallof Valinor, at whose feet fallthe surges of the Shadowy Sea.Out away she went then free,

to gardens of the Gods no morereturning, but on mortal shore,a glimmer ere the dawn she strayed,singing her spells from glade to glade.

A bird in dim Nan Elmoth woodtrilled, and to listen Thingol stoodamazed; then far away he heard

a voice more fair than fairest bird,a voice as crystal clear of noteas thread of silver glass remote.

Of folk and kin no more he thought;

of errand that the Eldar brought

from Cuiviénen far away,

of lands beyond the Seas that lay

no more he recked, forgetting all,

drawn only by that distant call

till deep in dim Nan Elmoth wood

lost and beyond recall he stood.

And there he saw her, fair and fay:

Ar-Melian, the Lady grey,

as silent as the windless trees,

standing with mist about her knees,

and in her face remote the light

of Lórien glimmered in the night.

No word she spoke; but pace by pace,

a halting shadow, towards her face

forth walked the silver-mantled king,

tall Elu Thingol. In the ring

of waiting trees he took her hand.

One moment face to face they stand

alone, beneath the wheeling sky,

while starlit years on earth go by

and in Nan Elmoth wood the trees

grow dark and tall. The murmuring seas

rising and falling on the shore

and Ulmo’s horn he heeds no more.

But long his people sought in vaintheir lord, till Ulmo called again,and then in grief they marched away,leaving the woods. To havens greyupon the western shore, the lastlong shore of mortal lands, they passed,and thence were borne beyond the Sea

in Aman, the Blessed Realm, to be

by evergreen Ezellohar

in Valinor, in Eldamar.

Thus Thingol sailed not on the seasbut dwelt amid the land of trees,and Melian he loved, divine,whose voice was potent as the winethe Valar drink in golden hallswhere flower blooms and fountain falls;but when she sang it was a spell,and no flower stirred nor fountain fell.A king and queen thus lived they long,and Doriath was filled with song,and all the Elves that missed their wayand never found the western bay,the gleaming walls of their long homeby the grey seas and the white foam,who never trod the golden landwhere the towers of the Valar stand,all these were gathered in their realmbeneath the beech and oak and elm.

In later days, when Morgoth fledfrom wrath and raised once more his headand Iron Crown, his mighty seatbeneath the smoking mountain’s feetfounded and fortified anew,then slowly dread and darkness grew:the Shadow of the North that allthe Folk of Earth would hold in thrall.

The lords of Men to knee he brings,the kingdoms of the Exiled Kingsassails with ever-mounting war:in their last havens by the shorethey dwell, or strongholds walled with feardefend upon his borders drear,till each one falls. Yet reign there stillin Doriath beyond his willthe Grey King and immortal Queen.No evil in their realm is seen;no power their might can yet surpass:there still is laughter and green grass,there leaves are lit by the white sun,and many marvels are begun.

There went now in the Guarded Realmbeneath the beech, beneath the elm,there lightfoot ran now on the greenthe daughter of the king and queen:of Arda’s eldest children bornin beauty of their elven-mornand only child ordained by birthto walk in raiment of the Earthfrom Those descended who beganbefore the world of Elf and Man.

Beyond the bounds of Arda farstill shone the Legions, star on star,memorials of their labour long,achievement of Vision and of Song;

and when beneath their ancient light

on Earth below was cloudless night,

music in Doriath awoke,

and there beneath the branching oak,

or seated on the beech-leaves brown,

Daeron the dark with ferny crown

played on his pipes with elvish art

unbearable by mortal heart.

No other player has there been,no other lips or fingers seenso skilled, ’tis said in elven-lore,save Maglor son of Fëanor,forgotten harper, singer doomed,who young when Laurelin yet bloomedto endless lamentation passedand in the tombless sea was cast.

But Daeron in his heart’s delightyet lived and played by starlit night,until one summer-eve befell,as still the elven harpers tell.